[MUD-Dev] Social Networks

[Sasha Hart]

[Dave Rickey]

> It strikes me that pure chat spaces would create random networks,
> not the clustered "scale free" networks that characterize stable
> social fabrics.

I don't know what kind of idealizations are packed into "pure chat
space," but I immediately think of IRC, which is stuffed with
links. It is substantially aided by the presence of channels, and
the ability to form them more or less arbitrarily.  Given that a
channel is essentially a name in a namespace tied to a list of
people who can all direct messages to each other easily, the users
still have to be supplying all of the socialization themselves.
Last I checked, the IRC channels I used to frequent are still active
and ~50% the same people after several years (90-100% if you stick
to ops and regulars).

If I had to guess, I'd say that the existence of easily created,
persistent, user-managed social "places" is critical to this.

A channel is just a list of people who all see each other's messages
at any given time.  MUDs have channels. But while it works fine on a
small MUD to have one global chat channel for chat, it should be no
real surprise that the same setup doesn't scale to hundreds of
people. So, break it down into smaller groups. But the nice feature
of user-created and user-managed "groups" is that people regulate
what they want out of the social interaction themselves, what kind
of people they want to deal with, and so on. And the nice feature of
the "place" which is managed, rather than simply the ability to
ignore and talk to individual people, is exactly what you point out
as being a function of T/H/N - to get people together and increase
chances of an introduction.

But I think the T/H/N setup, while it gets people together, creates
a conflict in that it is still a shortest path to experience to get
a Tank, Healer, and Nuker, essentially regardless of who they are as
long as they are efficient. My experience with AO grouping was 100%
this way - I couldn't get by without a group but basically I would
take anything that came along, because the point was still to
level. Since there was no real forum for talking or meeting people
for their own sake, the best links I made were people who I didn't
find actively obnoxious.  Not entirely there, yet...

I'm convinced that tying social groups to places is a great way to
one-up the T/H/N idea.  Why in the world would people in a MUD ever
want to stay in one place, though? Socialization?  Vicious
cycle.. (I have my own ideas).

> I'm not sure if I agree with this statement or not.  I think I am
> reluctant to accept the viability of durable and extensive social
> fabrics that are not at some level tied to reward.  When you make
> predictions of mass behaviour that are not grounded in individual
> reward-seeking, you enter very shaky territory.  Sure, we'd like
> to think the world isn't full of selfish bastards, but the cynics
> always seem to carry the day in the end.

Loot is only one kind of reward out of uncountably many. And the
means appropriate to pursue each kind are different. :)

> Somewhere along the line, you start hitting the limits on how many
> connections people can sustain, and things stabilize into a
> closely coupled cluster where most of the connections for each
> person in the cluster are to other people in the cluster, and any
> open links are usually filled from inside the cluster.  Sound like
> anything we see in these games?

Sure, but is it enough for a guild to be a kind of T/H/N matchmaking
service? The example I am thinking of is AO - my guild had all kinds
of ambitions that were not at all facilitated by the game. It didn't
boil down to much *past* matchmaking and some light chat. If there
were anything for us to really do, or have meetings about, or raise
funds for, or a place for guildies to hang out, or really any
situating context for the guild other than a name tagged onto each
member, it would have been a lot more interesting socially as well.

Sasha

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